Towable hay rakes having a "V" shape are known in the art. These rakes are usually referred to as pull-type "V" rakes and are comprised of a main frame and two hinged movable arms which carry a plurality of rotatable rake wheels. An example of such a pull-type "V" rake can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,685,135 (assigned to SITREX, s.r.l.), which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Typically these rakes cannot be transported or stored in fully assembled form because of their considerable dimensions. They therefore must be disassembled into smaller sections prior to storage or shipping in order to obtain components of reasonable dimensions, which are then reassembled after shipment or storage. Towable hay rake caddies are also known in the art. Such caddies generally consist of a towable wheeled frame on which hay rake arms carrying rake wheels may be mounted. Typically, caddies are shipped and/or sold separately from the rake arms. An example of such a caddy can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,216 to Kelderman, which is incorporated herein, in its entirety, by reference.
Because shipping and transportation costs can contribute greatly to the cost of agricultural machinery, such as hay rakes and the like, it is desirable to have a product that stores and ships in a compact and efficient way. Although many of the known hay rakes and caddies may be partially disassembled, they are less than satisfactory in this respect. Furthermore they are not easily disassembled and assembled., The disassembly of the known hay rakes and caddies typically results in the creation of a host of cumbersome and non-homogenous parts whose variety of differing shapes and sizes is not conducive to producing a practical, compact or efficient storage or shipping arrangement. This is in good part because the numerous awkward and non-homogenous shapes of the components cannot be compactly packed together and therefore produce large amounts of non-utilizable empty or "dead" space within the package. Thus, in order to lower shipping costs, manufacturers have in certain cases resorted to packaging two or more hay rakes together so as to intermesh the awkward shapes, in an effort to minimize the amount of empty or "dead air" space in the shipping crate. Since hay rakes or caddies are not usually sold in pairs, it is advantageous to be able to pack them singly into containers having minimized volume and a regular geometric shape that would allow them to be efficiently packed in a shipping vehicle or warehouse. It is especially advantageous to be able to efficiently store and ship an entire hay rake in one package of minimum dimensions. It is also especially advantageous to be able to quickly and conveniently disassemble and reassemble the hay rake.